| Some of
the Current Privacy & Security Threats

Here are some examples of the security threats that
our products will solve: Unlimited
Porn, and Violent Materials. The
unsupervised and unlimited access to the porn on the web creates some of
the most serious security threats for children, working parents and
families.
Financial Lawsuits.
There
are many occasions that the transparency of user online activities, or
client's confidential information leakage may bring financial lawsuits to
the corporates as well as the families. For example, some children
may purchase online music files, and innocently exchange their paid music
files with their friends. Children may use email system to send
music file as attachments. This ordinary file exchange among
children may look like a simple music CD exchange among friends.
However, the so-called 'file-sharing' exchange may bring unwelcoming
corporate lawsuits by music industry. Families may face sever
emotional, and financial damages.
Lack
of Control.
The
Corporates may require a unified control system for governing the employee
activities, and trends during working hours. Parents may need to
control and limit their children web access during unsupervised
hours. They may wish to limit the web email, and web access to
certain hours.
Information
Confidentiality. Unauthorized
email users may disclose some critical Information. Some web sites
may collect confidential information prior to providing any
services. Some others may provide malicious agents to collect use
information. While,
the corporates may fight back with some portion of the threats through the
use of tools, and other employee awareness programs, the children may not
fully understand the severity of the threats. Therefore, the
confidentiality breaches pose as very serious threats to corporates, and
families.
Email
Confidentiality.
There
are many private data mining , and spying engines that simply listens to
all types of Internet communications. In particular, these machines
listen to email communications, collect the useful user information, and
aggregate them for future use. The
aggregated and specific user information may endup in the hand of third
parties. These confidential information will affect negatively the
consumer's bargaining power against the insurance companies, and health
care industries.
Computer Disk Confidentiality.
The
unprotected user computer files may create the ultimate risks to the
individuals and corporates. For example, if a computer is lost accidentally,
then all its files are available to the intruders. As another
example, when a user deletes a file, the file will be available through
the use of data recovery tools. Any intruder may recover all the
user-deleted files, as well as other available files. Families face
additional dilemma. Children may simply make attempts to look at the
family sensitive files.
Remote
Intruders. These
are malicious characters that seek access to the user computer by the
Internet connection channel. Such
invasions generally only occur during the Internet connection period. The threat tends not to exist while the user computer is not
connected to the Internet. The
intruders may maliciously read the computer file system partially or
fully.
Local
Intruders.
These
are the malicious characters that seek physical access to the user computer. Internet access does not play
a significant role in this type of threat. However, Internet access can facilitate the transfer of stolen
information to other locations. The
threat continues even if the user is not connected to the Internet. The worst cases are when the computer itself is either lost or
stolen. The intruders may
maliciously read, write, or destroy the computer file system partially or
fully.
Local Intruder- Children.
On
the multi user home computers, the intrusion threats may become
different. Usually, parents use the home computers for downloading
sensitive files, or storing sensitive financial files. These files
may contain complex Audio/Visual contents to the more sensitive financial
materials. Occasionally, the children may get accidental access to
these files.
Eavesdroppers. These
are malicious characters that listen to all kinds of transmissions over the
Internet. The intruders may
maliciously read the transmitted information contained in emails and other
sources. The threats become
very serious during wireless Internet access by mobile devices.
Hijackers. These
are the Internet hackers who gain access to the user computer first, and
then use the computer system by itself for unsavory activities. They may, for example, use hijacked computers for sending Spam
emails or providing porn services to others.
User
Impersonation.
When
hijackers use the user computers for providing online services, they use
the user computer’s address as the source of porn services. Furthermore, they may access email accounts on the user computer,
and then send their own Spam email messages by using the user email
address as the source of malicious emails.
Spam
Email Senders. These
are malicious agents or users who send unsolicited email messages to other
email users. The emails may
be used for unsolicited marketing purposes, or to forward Spyware and
viruses. These agents or
users may hijack a computer for sending massive emails to others while
masking their own identities.
Trojan
Horses and Spyware Agents.
Trojan
horses or Spyware are computer programs that may relay information from
the user computers to the outside world. They may even send emails to other computers. These agents may maliciously read, write, or destroy the computer
file system partially or fully. Viruses
are among these categories. The
problem with these agents is that they need to be invited by the computer
users. Otherwise, they cannot
penetrate the computers by themselves. The user invitations are guaranteed when users download any
interesting program from the web, or when they open an email attachment. Even when parents are careful not to download Spyware programs,
their children may do so when they download any free software.
|